“Houston’s not a natural market for electric cars,” Crane admitted, when we met the other day. “But electric cars are good for our business in all kinds of ways,” he added. So NRG and Reliant is working with officials Houston, America’s 4th largest city, to persuade Nissan to make Houston one of the leading launch markets for the Nissan Leaf, the all electric vehicle that the Japanese automaker plans to start selling later this year.
“We are the Petro Metro, but we are also a car city,” said Houston’s newly-elected mayor, Annise Parker, at an event earlier this month to welcome Nissan to the city. Certainly there’s a sizable market awaiting Nissan in the city. Houston is home to 4.5 million vehicles that travel 86 million miles a day, according to Reuters.
Corporate Fleets Expected Early Adopters of Electric Vehicles
U.S. corporate fleets purchase about 300,000 vehicles a year, and they are expected to be among the steadiest customers of electric vehicles, including cargo vans, as they come to market.How Climate will Change Transportation: Part 2
Commercial trucks account for about 12 percent of miles driven but produce about 25 percent of all emissions, Scott Harrison, CEO of Azure Dynamics told the New York Times.
What I thought was more interesting were her findings on climate change and its effects on DOTs. The Three-Part Challenge to State DOTs
1. Reduce transportation GHG’s: by as much as 60-80% by 2050
2. Adapt transportation infrastructure: most importantly to severe storms, but also rising sea levels, high temperatures and flooding
3. Find a new revenue stream: one based on low carbon fuels
In the US highway vehicles = 82% of Transportation CO2 emissions, 23% of total US CO2 emission
Carbon traders foresee lacklustre market in 2010
Panellists speaking at the Point Carbon conference in Amsterdam this week believe the floor for CERs will be around the €8 level, which is generally regarded as cheap. Currently the December 2010 EUA contract is around €13 per ton of carbon dioxide equivalent (/t CO2e) and the same contract for CERs is around €11/t CO2e in the over-the-counter market, according to Point Carbon.
Shareholders target climate laggards in proxy season
A record 95 shareholder resolutions related to climate change were filed with 82 US and Canadian companies, representing a 40% increase from the 2009 proxy season, according to Boston-based Ceres, a coalition of investors and environmental groups.
The effort is expected to intensify now that the US Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) has issued guidance clarifying what publicly traded companies need to disclose about the material effects that climate change has on their business.
EU LP Group Asks PE To “Step Up Its Attitude To Climate Change”
In the guidelines, Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC), an organization whose more than 50 members manage some EUR4 trillion ($5.4 trillion) in assets, outline specific questions limited partners and general partners can ask to assess the potential impact of climate change on their portfolios.
Investments in World Bank Green Bonds Surpass USD 1 billion
“Investing in the World Bank's top-rated green bonds is a great way to promote smart and clean economic development in our planet's emerging economies while delivering dependable returns for the New York State Common Retirement Fund and its more than one million members. Investing in these bonds helps New York join the effort to curb harmful climate change while delivering bottom-line returns,” commented Thomas P. DiNapoli, New York State Comptroller, an investor in USD-denominated World Bank Green Bonds.
Hopes for USD 2 trillion global carbon market fade
The absence of legally binding global climate deal and a federal emissions trading scheme in the United States are standing in the way of the market in global emissions trading growing to achieve yearly turnover of USD 2 trillion by 2020.
"There will only be a USD 2 trillion market if the US gets on board," Trevor Sikorski, head of carbon research at Barclays Capital, told Reuters at a carbon conference in Amsterdam.
U.S. Postal Service to test a repurposed electric vehicle fleet
Starting this summer, the Postal Service, which operates the world's largest civilian vehicle fleet, will begin a year-long pilot program of electric mail trucks in the Washington area, using vehicles converted by five manufacturers.
"We have been integral to transportation since Day One," said Postal Service spokeswoman Sue Brennan, "so we consider this a role for us."
The experiment is the first field-testing of electric-powered long-life vehicles, a staple of postal delivery for decades. There are 142,000 delivery trucks still on the road. The small mail trucks are on their way to delivering their last packages -- most are between 20 and 25 years old. Last year, the Postal Service announced it would extend the lifespan of the vehicles to 30 years, buying the agency more time to make a decision about the future of its fleet while it wrestles with how to pay for replacements.
World's cheapest EV: Tata Nano electrifies Geneva show
The world's cheapest car, transformed into the world's cheapest electric car, went on display at the Geneva Motor Show.
India's Tata Nano EV seats four, has a predicted range of about 80 miles and will go from zero to about 35 miles per hour in a blistering 10 seconds. The car has super-polymer lithium-ion batteries, which Tata says provide superior energy retention.
